


Web

by echoist



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Angst, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-07
Updated: 2010-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-09 08:46:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoist/pseuds/echoist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loose sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/84796">Wisp</a>, set near the end of episode 12 (xxxHolic:  Kei).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Web

  


  


  


        Yūko slid back the panel from her bedroom and nearly tripped over the boy in the archery uniform. “My, my,” she said in mock surprise. “Are you still here?”

        He gave a noncommittal grunt, wiping the last of the blood off his arms and chest with a soiled rag. He held it out to her without looking up, and she took it without a word. “How is he?”

        “Sleeping, finally. We shouldn’t bother him any more tonight.”

        Doumeki seemed to absorb this with a considering look before standing up and entering the bedroom. “Hey, kid!” Yūko whispered, trying to sound stern.

        “I won’t wake him,” Doumeki promised, sliding the panel firmly shut behind him. Yūko blinked. Well how do you like that?

        Doumeki crossed the tatami as silently as he could manage with the floor tilting crazily beneath him. Substantial blood loss did not agree with him, it would seem, and a black haze hovered at the edge of his vision. He stood beside the bed for a moment before his knees gave out entirely and he managed to sink to the floor with something approaching grace, feet tucked beneath him as if at tea. Watanuki lay motionless behind the netting, too-pale skin fading into a jumble of riotous white. Sheets, pillows, bandages, skin; in the dim light, they merged and blended into one.

_Which of these does not belong_, he mused humorlessly. When Yūko explained the price for Watanuki’s recovery, Doumeki had first thought she meant some sort of mystical transfusion process. His surprise when the blood had been drawn from a thousand tiny cuts, every inch of flesh ignited by the sharp sting of an open wound, and the pool of gathered crimson set recklessly, wastefully aflame only seemed to amuse the witch.

        He could still smell the heavy, acrid smoke; he suspected that he always would.

        He reached through the screen and gently slid his fingers beneath Watanuki’s where they rested on the coverlet. He hadn’t really meant to do it, only think about it, but there it was, already done. His eyes flicked to Watanuki’s chest, to the steady rise and fall of restful dreams. He had meant what he said to Yūko; Doumeki had no intention of waking the other boy from sleep, especially now. He couldn’t seem to explain that distance had led them to this; if only he had been closer, earlier…

        “Haruka-san?” a sleepy, breathless whisper from behind the netting. Doumeki looked up with a start, confused by the sound until he realized that Watanuki had spoken his grandfather’s first name. _Figures._

       “No…” the boy slurred. “I’m awake now, you’re…Doumeki?” Watanuki’s voice rose as it stumbled over his name.

        “Am I not allowed in your dreams?” Doumeki asked before thinking better of it, looking away as the words left his mouth. His discomfort only grew as the silence dragged on in response.

        “I - never thought I’d see you here,” Watanuki answered, words pushing back the silence clotting the air like heady incense.

        “I never had a reason to be here, until today.” _I’d never failed, until today._ Doumeki’s fingers moved of their own volition, ever so slightly and Watanuki looked down to where his hand was cradled gently against the sheets. Doumeki swallowed the lump in his throat and let go, turning to rest his back against the elevated bed, drawing his knees up to his chest.

        “I’m sorry.”

        Watanuki knew, even half asleep, that Doumeki wasn’t apologizing for touching him. “Don’t be an idiot,” he murmured, struggling to keep his eyes open. He supposed it should worry him, how peaceful it seemed having Doumeki there. It would be so easy to just close his eyes and go back to sleep. Maybe Doumeki would even stay, his head tilted back against the bed, just like that. He was so still, the vivid hues of his archery uniform blending in so well with Yūko’s furnishings that he almost seemed a fixture of the room itself.

_Red and black…_ Doumeki’s uniform was white.

        “Doumeki!” he cried, pushing himself up to a sitting position with a gasp of pain and indrawn breath. The other boy turned back to face him, startled at his outburst. “Your clothes, you’re soaked….soaked in…”

        “You lost a lot of blood,” Doumeki explained simply. It was the truth, if not precisely all of it. “You should lay back down.”

        “Yūko-san said…” Watanuki hesitated, drawing as deep a breath as would fill his bandaged chest. “She said you were there. You saw me fall.”

        Doumeki stiffened. “I couldn’t - I wasn’t fast enough, this time.” He whispered the words to the floor, closing his eyes as if anything so simple could banish the image from his mind.

  
_The tension of the bow held taut in his hands, easy and familiar. The light brush of fletching against his cheek as he gauged the breeze. The sound of breaking glass as the arrow flew wide and struck the wall, grazing his skin when he turned to look…_

        Running, running, fast enough to see him tumble down in a silent hail of shattered glass, fast enough to hear the scream that should have been Watanuki’s torn out from his own throat, but not fast enough to stop him from striking the ground. Kunogi grabbing at his hands and shouting, prying the jagged shards from his fingers after Yūko had swept up his broken shell and carried him away. He could not remember a moment’s rational thought after the arrow left his bow until the deal was accepted, the price paid in full. Until he could be certain.

        “No, Doumeki, I didn’t mean…it was my own fault.”

        Typical Kimihiro. “Didn’t you hear a word Kunogi-san just said?”

        “You were listening?” Watanuki managed to sound remarkably offended for one with so little lung capacity. “That was…that was private, dammit!”

  
_Do you think I wanted to hear you say you loved her?_

        “I was sitting outside the door,” Doumeki replied with a shrug. Then, quietly, “She was right, you know.”

        Silence. “She doesn’t want to hurt you any more than she already - “

        “Shut up!” Doumeki could feel Watanuki shaking with anger behind him and knew better than to turn around. “It’s my decision, and I want to be with her, even if it means sometimes I’ll get hurt.”

  
_How can he possibly still think he’s the only one injured by this?_

        “One of these days, Kimihiro, it’s going to cost you your life.” Doumeki fought to keep his voice low and even. “Didn’t today teach you anything? I can’t be there to catch you every time you fall.”

        “I never asked you to!” Watanuki’s words fell heavily into the stunned silence, forcing the air from Doumeki’s lungs in a defeated rush. Doumeki rose slowly to his feet, the sharply sweet smell of drying blood suddenly noxious and overwhelming.

        “No,” he whispered. “It was my choice.” A curious sort of pain began to work its way into his bones as a web of thin, white scars flared to life across his skin, a reminder of the price he had so willingly paid for Watanuki’s stubborn loyalty. If the tables should turn, if it were Kunogi pleading with him to abandon Watanuki before it was too late, he would choose no differently. But a lifetime of waiting to intervene between Watanuki and the inevitable, playing the white knight only to be cast aside in favor of soft curls and a false smile -

        There would only be so many times he could pull Watanuki back from the brink when it meant sending him back to _her_. When they both knew it would only come to this, again and again, until one of them fell away for the last time.

        “Take care of yourself, Kimihiro.” The door swayed in his vision as he willed his legs to carry him across the floor, heedless of the encroaching fog at the corners of his eyes.

        “Doumeki…” Watanuki’s voice, sad and lost in the space between them. Just a little further, another step, and then two…

        “Hey, Doumeki, wait!” A cough, the rustle of sheets. He shut it out, white noise, drawing farther away into the rush of blood at his ears. So much blood…

        “_Please!_” He stopped, one hand outstretched to the door as an invisible cord pulled suddenly, fiercely taut. A slipping sound, a tumbling, and this time, this time, his arms wrapped around Watanuki as he fell to the ground.

       “You idiot,” he whispered against Watanuki’s hair. “A few hours ago, every bone in your body was broken. Why did you try to stand up?”

        He leaned against Doumeki, arms limp at his sides, head cradled gently in the hollow of his throat. For a terrible, paralyzing moment, Doumeki thought he wasn’t breathing, then he felt the shallow rise and fall against his chest and remembered to breathe, himself.

        “You can’t just walk away.”

        Doumeki closed his eyes. “No, I can’t. But god help me, Kimihiro, I had to try.”

        Watanuki drew back, resting against Doumeki’s hand where it tangled in his hair. “I don’t understand.”

        “Yes you do,” Doumeki corrected him softly. “You won’t leave Kunogi-san, and I - I won’t - I _can’t_ \- “ He gave up on words, sliding his hand up Watanuki’s neck and gently tilting his chin up until their eyes met. Everything fell away; every argument, every pretense, every stubborn refusal to give dissolved into a single moment of gut-wrenching insight and Watanuki finally understood. Doumeki leaned forward and kissed him; softly, lightly, barely a whisper of his lips across skin. His fingers were numb and tingling, the dark clouds at the edge of consciousness beginning to win the struggle and he sighed. Watanuki’s eyes fluttered closed, his mouth working as if any words could logically follow in the enveloping silence.

        He whispered Doumeki’s name, not his family name, not the subtle insult he always intended by speaking the syllables alone, but his proper name. The name that seemed to mean trust and hope and thankfulness all at once as it left his lips.

        “Shizuka,” just a breath in the stillness, and then the quiet rhythm of sleep as he sank against Doumeki’s shoulder. He lifted the boy in his arms, stumbling a bit as his limbs protested this last test of their resolve. Settling Watanuki against the jumble of pillows, he tucked the covers up under his chin and touched his cheek in farewell.

        “Sleep well,” he murmured, wondering what the world would look like in the morning. He hadn’t made Watanuki’s life any easier, but he couldn’t seem to summon up an ounce of regret. His hand drifted to his lips as he slid back the panel to the hallway, nearly stumbling over the tangled, sleeping forms of Maru and Moro. The witch leaned against the wall, stroking the pale strands of pink and blue hair that mingled together in her lap.

        Yūko took a long drag from the thin pipe in her fingers before she turned her head, fixing him with a dark and thoughtful stare. “You’re not to be trusted, are you?”

        “It seems my lot to fight the inevitable,” he stated simply, as if such things were said every day. “That being the case, Ichihara-san, it seems that we’re going to be at odds for a little while longer.” A strange half-smile transformed his face, an expression Yūko had seen before on someone else.

        “Hmph,” she muttered, turning back to the shadows along the wall. “You’re more like your grandfather than you know.”

        Doumeki said nothing, somehow unsurprised that she had known the old priest. She nodded towards an open door into a dimly lit room, mattress unrolled invitingly on the tatami, soft white yukata folded and waiting. He wondered what it would cost him to take her up on the offer; wondered if he could afford to forgo the courtesy and stumble home to the temple on his own.

        “This is my payment to that old man,” Yūko informed him, intruding upon his thoughts. “If he had not intervened, Watanuki would have passed through the borderlands after his parents’ spirits. Haruka’s gift to us was time, and you would do well to pay your portion of the debt here and now.”

        Doumeki nodded after a moment, turning his shuffling steps in the direction of the guest room and the comfort it held. Sleep would be a relief from the doubts cluttering his mind, multiplying in the shadows just out of sight. Fate seemed a wheel rolling ever on, crushing the tiny cogs that made its progress possible. How could he even fight against that sort of inertia when every connection, every desire forced the wheel another turn?

        Moonlight filtered through the window, brushed against his skin as Doumeki exchanged the stiff, blood-stained uniform for the cotton yukata. The thin network of lines crisscrossing his arms, chest, and back would fade with time, but now they stood out like tattoos against his skin. Every path, every connection a different change of fate; lines weaving together only to branch away. Once joined, however briefly, those strands in the web could never truly be separate again. A tug on a single thread would resonate throughout the entire weft, only to be balanced out by a new connection, a warp, a pattern that could not have existed before.

        It occurred to him that the cycle spun on the axis of choice; every thread a decision, a road to be traveled or turned from, but nothing more. It wasn’t how much he owed the universe, how large his debt to the monstrous wheel of Fate, but instead how far his actions would travel down the strands. It was action, not reaction, the gift, not reciprocation. The beginning, and never the end.

        Doumeki closed his eyes on these thoughts, content with his place in the pattern. Tomorrow would bring new choices, new directions, and he would meet them as he always had before. It was inevitable, after all; the balance would take care of itself.

 

8/13/2008

**Author's Note:**

> The kanji in the title, _soshiki_, translate to structure, tissue, or system. The first character, 組, has the connotation of tying things together. The second character, 織 , means to weave, as in the case of thread or fabric. I did not use the Japanese word for spider web, 蜘蛛の巣 , because it literally means "spider's nest" and does not have the connotation of a pattern or connection as it frequently can in English.


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